Russia

Investigators have started, with an almost three-year delay, examining the complaints lodged by Ramazan Djalaldinov, a resident of the Sharoi District of Chechnya, about his prosecutions after his video appeal to Vladimir Putin about the problems of the village of Kenkhi, the Committee against Torture (CaT) has informed.

For the first time in the last 15 years, a mourning march to the walls of the Russian Consulate General in commemoration of the victims of the Caucasian War and the deportation of Circassians from the Caucasus has been banned in Istanbul, activists inform.

The head of the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has offered to apply US sanctions to the entire ministry; and the commander of the "Terek" SOBR (special quick-response regiment) has linked the sanctions with the regiment's successful fight against terrorism. By their statements, law enforcers reconfirmed their loyalty to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, local residents believe.

A court in the city of Nizhny Tagil has satisfied the petition on application of the conditional early relief (CER) to Mustafa Tsoroev, convicted within the case of torture at the Ingush Centre for Combating Extremism (CCE, also known as "E" Centre).

Adam Shakhidov, a Chechen theologian, has equated the motto of Kadyrov's retinue, "Akhmat is power!", to the foundations of the Koran and the Sunnah, treating the chanting of this slogan as a duty of the residents of Chechnya. Social network users and local residents have criticized Shakhidov's statement. References to religion are often used as tools of political propaganda, and interpretations of sacral texts are adapted to the conjuncture, Islamic scholars have pointed out.

Representatives of the human rights organization "Amnesty International" (AI) have delivered a petition signed by Western Europeans to the administration of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, demanding to investigate crimes against members of the LGBT community in Chechnya. The signatures collected in the UK have been handed over to the Russian Embassy in London.

Georgy Guev, a native of North Ossetia, detained in Moscow on suspicion of financing terrorism, had transferred money to strangers in response to an appeal to help the poor in the month of Ramadan. This version was told by his wife.

In Moscow, law enforcers detained Georgy Guev, a native of North Ossetia, who for four years transferred 50 million roubles to militants from the "Islamic State" (a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court), the FSB reported.